This seems pretty alarmist. More than ever parents know where their children are(I don't think its a good thing). I also don't particularly care if anyone knows where my daughter is. There are plenty of children just like her that a predator could kidnap. If someone was specifically targeting her this wouldn't help them at all. Nor would a location services policy be a deterrent.
There are only so many things a parent can worry about. This isn't one of them. I can imagine the kind of parent that would implement a family "location services policy". It's the same kind that installs NetNanny for their 16 year old, reads their kids' emails, checks their cell phone logs, records their mileage every night to make sure they go where they say they're going, doesn't let them go outside alone, etc. The world is not such a frightening place. Let's not make it one.
This seems pretty alarmist. More than ever parents know where their children are(I don't think its a good thing).
To me it didn't seem all that alarmist, but probably because I recognized it as reference to a bump that FOX affiliate stations run, a narrator asks "Its 10 PM, do you know where your children are?" over the 2200 station ID.
I can imagine the kind of parent that would implement a family "location services policy". It's the same kind that ...
Apparently you can't imagine that kind of parent correctly. My father was an IBM-er back in the day, and when we got dailup at home he spent a bit of time explaining to my siblings and me how to be smart on the internet, and part of that was a "location policy" (pretty cut and dry, because back in the AOL days basically all he had to say was: don't tell anyone where you live). They didn't spyware the shit out of my computer, they were surprisingly hands off, to the point that months passed between my switching to linux and their noticing the computer looked different.
The world is not such a frightening place. Let's not make it one.
For an article that basically boils down to "make sure your kid knows what their phone is doing", I don't think its all that frightening of a piece. Seems like solid advice.
I concur with your sentiment but I think informing people/kids about how much information they're leaking is A Good Thing.
Unfortunately, most folks (including the kid in the story) have some expectation of privacy even though they've unwittingly given it up. Especially when fragments are given up in seeemingly separate places, yet reconstructing them is as trivial as a Google search.
That kid in the OP is probably going to get quite a surprise when his Dad asks him about the message he sent.
I talked to the Dad earlier this evening and the kid had NO IDEA that this info was leaking out. This issue isn't about being a helicopter parent or about being paranoid. It's simply about being aware. You tell a teen to put their wallet in their front pocket and you should tell them to click off on location services. This is just one of a thousand life lessons.
There are only so many things a parent can worry about. This isn't one of them. I can imagine the kind of parent that would implement a family "location services policy". It's the same kind that installs NetNanny for their 16 year old, reads their kids' emails, checks their cell phone logs, records their mileage every night to make sure they go where they say they're going, doesn't let them go outside alone, etc. The world is not such a frightening place. Let's not make it one.